Columbia Winery moving out of Woodinville

Columbia Winery, one of Woodinville's top tourist draws, will leave its iconic building next year and move its winemaking and bottling operations to Eastern Washington.

The winery is looking for a nearby location for a visitor center and does not know yet what will happen to all of its 54 employees. About 20 work in bottling and winemaking, which will move to Sunnyside in the Yakima Valley, where most of Columbia's wines already are made.

The move has nothing to do with the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train ending its stop at the winery earlier this year, said Glenn Coogan, vice president of Northwest operations for Icon Estates, which runs Columbia, Hogue Cellars and Covey Run wineries. Icon is owned by the alcoholic beverage conglomerate Constellation Brands in upstate New York.

"That didn't affect sales," Coogan said. "We thought it would make a difference, but we were able to do things like winetasting events and food and appetizers that we weren't able to do while tending to a train with a couple hundred people."

Columbia was not able to reach a new lease agreement with the building's owners, he said. Its lease ends April 30.

Most of Columbia's wine is sold to restaurants and retailers rather than directly to consumers, Coogan said.

The Woodinville building, which appears on many of Columbia's bottle labels, attracted tourists, weddings and other events that were special, but "are really not our core business," he said. "We're a winemaking operation."

Columbia shares a winery in Sunnyside with Covey Run, and Coogan said it will be more efficient to have all of Columbia's winemaking and bottling in one location. It will also be closer to the wine grapes.

"We have a very small amount of production over here," Coogan said of Woodinville. "The economics and logistics and quality support the move."

It is Columbia's fifth move since the winery began in 1962 in the Seattle garage of one of its founders. It has been based at its present Woodinville location, next door to Redhook Ale Brewery and across the street from Chateau Ste. Michelle, for almost 20 years.

Melissa Allison: 206-464-3312 or mallison@seattletimes.com